i want to get a PMP that plays mkv files

i have a creative zen vision that plays xvid that i take on the go for music and movies/tv but with Hd content i'd like to be able to play mkvs now and the best one / only one i see that can play mkvs is the cowon a3.

i like the option of hooking it up to a tv so i don't need to spring for something like the popcorn hour

anyone here own one that has any opinions or has anyone researched this sort of thing that has any opinions?

12/17/2008 3:54:15 PM

thats a lot of processing power to be run by a pair of double A's...

12/17/2008 4:02:36 PM

What's the point of playing HD content on a 800x480 screen? Yeah, I know, so you don't have to convert the files first, but it only does 720p stuff (and even that's sketchy from some of the reviews I read) so anything in 1080 will still need to be converted anyway. As far as hooking it up to a TV, I PROMISE you, you will be happier with a Popcorn Hour or decent HTPC. I had a Archos that I used for about 2 seconds before it got tiresome having to mess with it's issues. I know I would run in the other direction (right towards a popcorn hour and whatever cheap pmp of choice you can find for cheap, if mobile video is really what you're after) if it was me.

12/17/2008 5:01:07 PM

you sure the cowon a3 plays .MKV files? i know it supports a shitload of formats, but I didn't see Matroska here

http://tinyurl.com/4l597h

Quote :

"Still Images Supported Still Images Formats BMP, GIF, JPEG, RAW, PNG, TIFF Digital Audio Supported Audio Formats WAV, WMA, AAC, ASF, PCM, MPEG 1 Audio, MPEG 2 Audio, Ogg Vorbis, G.726, MP3, FLAC, Apple Lossless, AC-3, APE (Monkey's Audio) Video Video Playback Formats MPEG-4 SP, MPEG-4, XviD, DivX 5.0, DivX 4.0, MPEG-1, Motion JPEG, WMV, DivX 3.11, AVI, MPEG, VOB, ASF, OGM (Ogg Media), DivX 6.0 "

12/17/2008 5:05:25 PM

HD on a 4" screen? I'LL PASS

12/17/2008 5:06:34 PM

^^http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a3/tech_specs.html

Quote :

"File Format AVI, WMV, ASF,MP4, MATROSKA(MKV), OGM, MPG/MPEG, DAT,MTV"

12/17/2008 5:06:38 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/13/cowon-a3-unboxed/comments/9255482/

Quote :

"While the format compatibility line up is impressive, the device simply doesn't have the processing power to play 720p H.264 files in MKV containers. In fact the device won't even try to play files using the H.264 AVC HP, but it will try to play H.264 AVC MP, just very poorly."

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3D29O3F6EPT16/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Quote :

"Update 06/05/08: New firmware was released back in 05/19/08; I only recently downloaded this and because of a lot things happening, could not update my review as soon as I downloaded it. As expected, better avi. playback and for the first time, 720p is playable, though only in MP4 format and the frame rate suffers as the audio and visual are not in sync. MKV. seems to be the biggest issue here, as the frame rate is terrible causing many videos in this format not showing on the screen at all...."

[Edited on December 17, 2008 at 5:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/17/2008 5:08:32 PM